The Grieving Process of the Criminal Mind
by Gigabomb
Summary: Itachi x Kisame, spoilers up to chapter 342. In which there are late night encounters under fluorescent lights, things left unsaid, and beverages.


Author's Note: Originally written for yaoi challenge.

\/\/\/\/\

For all his inborn intuition, Uchiha Itachi had no talent whatsoever at predicting the future.

----

The meeting concerning the capture schedule of the Yonbi and Orochi finally over, Kisame stood and winced as he felt his spine crack. It had been thoughtful of Deidara to suggest buying chairs, but unfortunately Kakuzu's control over the budget inevitably made such purchases uncomfortable ones.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Itachi also rise to his feet, though the gesture looked infinitely more graceful on the Uchiha's slender frame. The man didn't show any sign of wishing to stay in the cave any longer than necessary, making for the tunnel that led to the entrance in long strides as soon as he was out of his chair. Kisame moved to follow, though his pace slowed as he heard Deidara call out his name.

"Hey, Kisame! You want to go out for drinks now that everyone's finally shut up?"

"We're going to the place that has the glasses with umbrellas in them!" Tobi chirped, then staggered as Deidara slapped him upside the head, apparently out of habit.

Kisame grinned at the casual familiarity of the gesture. He had been worried about the two of them for a while. "Umbrellas, you say, Tobi-san?"

Tobi nodded vigorously, even as he rubbed the back of his head where Deidara had hit him. "And real fruit, too! They have the best strawberry-"

"Kisame."

Itachi's voice, quiet as it was, cut Tobi off as effectively as the loudest of Deidara's admonitions ever had. Kisame turned to see his partner waiting at the mouth of the tunnel, his dark eyes unblinking. Then Itachi left.

Kisame smiled apologetically at the two younger Akatsuki. "Sorry, Deidara-san, Tobi-san. I have to be going."

Deidara waved a hand negligently. "Don't worry about it, yeah. Tobi can buy you a daiquiri some other time."

Kisame grinned, before turning to follow Itachi out of the cave, leaving the other partnership behind. He couldn't bring himself to feel too bad about it. The way they were acting around each other these days, they would probably enjoy themselves more without him.

----

Sometimes when Itachi slept, he stopped breathing. Kisame spent the night after his nightmares changed counting the number of times this happened.

----

"I've been meaning to ask you, Kisame."

Kisame looked up from examining his wavering reflection in his sake cup to meet Deidara's eyes. They were quite a bit closer than they had been a minute ago, but then, the bomber's perception of what constituted personal space tended to shrink in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol he consumed. "Yes, Deidara-san?"

"What's Itachi like? Really, I mean." Deidara grinned. "He can't be such a tight ass all the time, yeah?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Kisame watched Tobi attempt to stagger his way to the bar's karaoke machine, only to have his progress impeded by Kakuzu grabbing him by the back of his coat and forcing him into the opposing booth. Next to Kakuzu, Hidan fingered his pendant and mumbled what were probably prayers asking his god to forgive him for coming to a place of such great sin. At least, that was what the Jashin worshipper usually complained about every time he ended up going bar crawling with everyone else.

Well, not quite everyone. Zetsu was absent, as expected. Itachi as well. Also expected. Kisame swirled his sake around in small, asymmetric circles for several moments before taking a sip. He put the cup back down on the rough wooden table with a little more force than he intended. "Why do you ask?"

Deidara shrugged and downed his own glass of sake. He wiped his mouth clean with the back of his good hand. "Just curious, and figured you'd know. You're his partner, after all."

"Itachi-san…" Kisame ran his tongue along his teeth, but despite his care he felt the flesh snare and blood be drawn, filling his mouth with the taste of iron. He liked the camaraderie such get-togethers bred, but he had never held much fondness for alcohol. Alcohol made Deidara friendly, Tobi loud, Hidan morose, and Kakuzu focused to the point that Kisame had once caught the former Waterfall-nin carving the tab for the night's drinking into the table with a kunai for the twentieth time in an hour. Personally, it made him sloppy, more likely to misstep, make mistakes. He would regret this in the morning. "There is nothing really to say. Itachi-san is as he always is."

Deidara's eyes drooped in disappointment. "That's it, yeah? No juicy gossip to share? There's gotta be something. Everyone has something. Did I ever tell you about the time when I poured glue all over-"

"Nothing, Deidara-san. Please stop asking."

The bomber sighed theatrically. "You aren't much fun sometimes, Kisame, you know that, yeah?" He pushed himself to his feet, and with his hand holding the back of the booth, walked slowly over to the other Akatsuki-inhabited booth and collapsed next to his partner, leaving Kisame alone. Kisame looked down at his sake, only to realize with some surprise that the cup had cracked in his hand, what was left of the pale liquid merging into an irregular oval on the tabletop. He had not even felt the ceramic shards bite into his palm.

----

"Deidara-sempai, do you want any coffee?"

"No. And you don't get any either. You're annoying enough without the caffeine, yeah?"

----

"It is a little early to be making tea."

Kisame shrugged and placed the steaming teapot to the side to let the water cool below the boiling point. "I couldn't sleep." He did not ask what Sasori himself was doing awake; ever since they had consolidated in River Country when the gathering of the bijuu began in earnest, the puppeteer had become a regular fixture of the base's hallways at night.

Sasori nodded slowly and seated himself at the low table. "Ah. Is there enough for two?"

Kisame's movements slowed as he placed the green tea leaves to stew in the pot. "I wasn't aware you drank green tea." He had not been aware Sasori could ingest anything at all, but it was not necessary to say so out loud.

Sasori smiled, aware of unspoken question but unbothered by it. "I do not." Kisame waited for an explanation. After a short pause, Sasori provided him with one. "Deidara contracted stomach flu while we were visiting Fire Country. I came here thinking to make some soup, but tea would probably sit better right now."

"It is a stimulant," Kisame felt obliged to remind him.

Sasori just shrugged. "He won't be sleeping tonight either way."

They waited in amiable silence as the tea leaves turned the water a pale green. Kisame did not mind Sasori; out of all the members of the Akatsuki, the puppeteer was the only other person who understood that a period of quiet did not necessarily have to be charged with implications.

The tea was soon ready, and Sasori received the teacup with a small bow and thanks. He left without another word, for which Kisame was thankful. Sasori was also a welcome companion in that among his other virtues, he also understood that there were some questions that did not need to be asked, and some thoughts that did not need to be voiced.

----

Kakuzu survived less than half an hour longer than Hidan. Both immortals died alone, not knowing what happened to the other.

----

Itachi had sporadic insomnia. When he slept, it was like the dead. When he couldn't, it was quickly realized and he rose from his bed, dressed in silence, and spent the night sitting cross-legged outside the door to their shared living quarters.

It was not meditation, neither the kind Hidan practiced nor the seeking of inner peace Kisame remembered being taught so long ago he could not recall his instructor's face. Itachi just sat, his eyes open, staring blankly at whatever was in front of him until dawn.

Of the two of them, it was Kisame who had the nightmares. He had dreamt of drowning since he was a child, and they had not ceased even after he had mastered the technique that enabled him to breathe water. If there were other nightmares, he never remembered them.

Six months passed before Kisame first found himself opening the door to their quarters and seating himself next to Itachi. It was another year before Kisame asked, "Do you want anything?"

Itachi did not turn his head, though his eyes flickered towards Kisame, once. "Some green tea would be nice."

----

Thirty-seven. The incidents when his heart stopped beating, Kisame counted for two on a whim.

----

"I can't believe I got stuck with Zetsu's idiot sidekick for a partner. It's downright insulting." Deidara slammed a hand down on the kitchen table, causing Kisame's cup of coffee to jump about an inch before thankfully settling without more than a few drops spilling. "It's not like it's my fault Sasori-danna died, yeah? And this new guy's gonna bite it, and then I'll just get stuck with someone even worse. Vicious fucking cycle."

Kisame took a sip out of his cup. "Well, there's a simple solution to that I think, Deidara-san."

Deidara loudly slurped his own coffee (decaf; Sasori had forbidden Deidara from ever drinking anything with caffeine two days after their partnership began and some habits were difficult to break). "Yeah? What would that be?"

"Don't leave your own partner alone long enough to die."

Deidara rolled his eyes. "No shit, yeah. If Sasori-danna got himself killed when I'm not around to watch his back, Tobi'd probably get his head stuck in a hole and suffocate within ten minutes if I wasn't around to yank him out. The man's a moron, yeah. Nothing like Sasori-danna at all."

Kisame didn't say what he was thinking; the lack of resemblance between the two shinobi was probably the best for all concerned. No one ever benefited from spending their life remembering ghosts.

----

"You're too careless, Hidan."

"Huh? Well, shit, Kakuzu, thought that was why you liked me so much."

"You _disintegrated _our target's body. How the hell am I supposed to collect the bounty now?"

"It's just some fucking money, Kakuzu."

"_Just some-_"

----

Kisame spent the evening after Sasori's death listen to Deidara babble through the sedatives Kakuzu had put the bomber on _Sasori-danna you idiot you fucking moron who the fuck gets killed by their grandmother I can't believe you would just **leave**_ after attaching the arm that was left back to the corresponding shoulder. He spent the night reaching for something in the dark, only to find it wasn't there.

Itachi accompanied him to the kitchen for once, and stared at him evenly over the rim of his teacup. "Drowning?"

Kisame shook his head. Just then, he wished he drank green tea, if only to keep his hands occupied with something other than tearing up the cheap paint on the tabletop with his fingernails.

Itachi didn't ask for further details, and if he cared that Kisame was more often found sitting outside in the hallway than he was for the remainder of the week, he didn't mention it.

----

No one besides Deidara ever looked directly at Tobi's face the rare times he took off his mask, holding it in his hands as if it was likely to snap in two if his attention wavered for even a moment.

Deidara stared, and did so with no perceivable embarrassment. Hidan muttered to Kakuzu about entitlement issues and most of the time it was all the bounty hunter could do to muffle his laugh into the sleeve of his coat. Deidara would glare at them with a scowl over one shoulder, but as far as Kisame could tell, the commentary never did anything to stop the bomber from staring at his partner, as often and for as long as he liked.

----

Kisame blinked bemusedly over his lemon-flavored water. "'Luxury expenses'?"

Kakuzu nodded. "Considering how close we are becoming to achieving our goal, I thought it expedient to compile and categorize where all our money is going."

"Kakuzu-san, I doubt what we're doing will ever be tax-deductible."

"It will be once legitimate governments start utilizing our services."

Kisame mulled over this for a few seconds. "Well… he does buy raspberry-scented conditioner sometimes."

Kakuzu scribbled something in the small notebook Kisame had noticed him carrying more and more often lately. "Brand name?"

"Depends on where we are when he runs out."

----

"Deidara-sempai… maybe you should get some sleep. You look kind of tired."

"I'm fine."

"Your hands are shaking."

"I'm _fine_."

"You're lying."

Deidara glared. Tobi didn't back down.

Deidara was the first to look away.

As he pulled the teapot off the stove, Kisame resisted the urge to sigh. He wished such arguments would take place somewhere other than the communal kitchen for once.

----

Kisame did not even try to sleep after Zetsu reported what had happened to Hidan and Kakuzu. Neither did he go out to the hallway where Itachi had retreated after the impromptu meeting had dispersed. He stayed in their quarters, sitting fully clothed on his bed, running his thumb unthinkingly along his sword's hilt until the skin was rubbed raw from contact with the roughened grip, staring unblinkingly at the floor.

Two hours had passed in such a way when the bedroom door creaked open, and Kisame looked up to see Itachi standing there; unlike Kisame, the Uchiha was dressed appropriately for the hour, stripped of all the trappings of his profession and his feet bare on the stone floor. In his left hand were balanced two white mugs, still steaming. The Uchiha met Kisame's eyes calmly for the moment it took for the usual acknowledgement of presence to occur before padding over to Kisame and holding out the mugs for inspection. "Choose one."

Kisame looked down at the contents of the mugs. The liquid was light brown in color, and each mug had a large marshmallow floating in it. Kisame looked at Itachi again and raised an eyebrow.

On the Uchiha's end, no uncomfortable shrug was forthcoming. "It's hot chocolate."

Kisame leaned his sword against the wall before gingerly taking one of the mugs—experience had taught him that just because his partner was capable of holding something didn't mean it wouldn't give him second degree burns—and dubiously inspected it. "Are we all out of tea leaves, then?"

His burden now lightened, Itachi seated himself on his own bed opposite Kisame's and took a sip out of his mug. He was frowning as he said abruptly, "I used to drink this all the time."

Kisame followed his partner's example and sipped his drink. The hot chocolate tasted… well, like chocolate. It wasn't his flavor of choice, but at least it was warm. The marshmallow didn't seem to serve much purpose, though it was interesting to watch how it was beginning to melt from the heat. "Really?"

Itachi nodded, still frowning into his mug. "Before I joined the ANBU. It has milk in it, so it's sleep-inducing. My mother made it from scratch, but all our kitchen had was the instant kind. This isn't quite as good."

"It's not bad," Kisame ventured.

Itachi nodded, his expression shifting back to its usual bland lines. "I suppose not."

Kisame's marshmallow by that point had melted completely to film the top of the hot chocolate milky white. He drank deeper of the mug the second time, emptying it nearly to the halfway point. It really wasn't bad at all, and though Kisame had deliberately not sought Itachi out after Zetsu's report, he didn't mind his partner's presence.

It had been rather stupid of him, really, to want to be alone after what had happened. His grip on the mug tightened fractionally as an image of Hidan's habitually spastic grin flashed before his eyes. Good things never happened to Akatsuki left alone.

"Kisame. We'll be fine."

Itachi had always been terrible at giving context, but Kisame had known the Uchiha far too long for it to be necessary to ask for some. "No offense, Itachi-san, but you have no way of knowing that."

Itachi sipped his hot chocolate. "There is a legend in my family about our ancestor, Uchiha Madara. He was the first to develop our bloodline separate of the Hyuuga, and it is said that he had the ability to see what would happen before it actually did. He foresaw the creation of the Uchiha Clan, and knew it was him who would be its founder."

Kisame grinned, amused despite himself at his usually practical partner's storytelling. "Seeing the future is impossible, Itachi-san. The only reason your clan founder's vision came true is because he made it so."

Itachi nodded. "True. Uchiha Madara was very powerful and a great leader, but it is very doubtful he could, say, foresee an enemy attack months before it occurred. But his own destiny… that he could predict very well." He drained his mug and set it on his bedside table before lying back on the bed and closing his eyes. "Goodnight, Kisame."

----

"What do you think happens after you die, Deidara-sempai?"

"…"

"Deidara-sempai?"

"Go to sleep, Tobi."

**END**


End file.
